March 23, 2010

Playing against women in the Monte Carlo Satellite

I just couldn’t help myself from writing this blog today. This is about women who are playing on PokerStars presently for a seat and trip to the EPT Monte Carlo.

I started playing these satellites last week. The first one I played I won my seat into the main qualifier for the trip. They gave three trip packages last Sunday. I had the biggest swings in a tournament than ever before. This resulted from my newly found aggression courtesy of the Maven’s training. As for the end results, it was not to be.

Today I played another satellite, and I once again had huge chip swings. This time I don’t give full credit to the aggression factor I was proudly displaying, but instead to the players who believed Ace-rag was a golden hand. I had not seen this play in the earlier satellites, but this one was over whelmed with these players.

Women are typically most difficult for me to play against but they shouldnt be. I should be playing every tournament the same. But it appears that these players were more unpredictable and would call down with any second or bottom pair and get lucky. My KK was never good against 8/10 or A6o. Aggression or ABC poker generally has not helped me in these predicaments either. I’m at a loss as to the strategy to attack these players. I may be reading way too much into this particular satellite except I just couldnt get a handle on the majority of the players even tho I had PokerTracker running and was taking extensive notes. Just when I had someone pegged they would do something totally off the wall. If I hadnt known better, I would have thought the table was full of first time players with exception of a few.

If I sound frustrated, I suppose I am. My frustration stems from my inability to change my game to play against these players better. My game has changed greatly in the past month, and for the better without a doubt. But because I ran into a situation I had never dealt with before I tilted.

I’m going to stay on the road I’ve begun on, and try to turn it into a learning experience. I’m shaking my head as I write this so I still have to convince myself that is the plan! A loss is a loss, you go to the next tournament and play your best and try not to make any mistakes and play the perfect game.